James McAvoy And Angelina Jolie's 2008 Comic Book Movie Is A Streaming Hit On Netflix

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It's not Marvel. It's not DC. But a comic book movie is currently dominating Netflix's most-watched film charts. The movie in question is "Wanted." Released by Universal Pictures in 2008, it's a (very loose) adaptation of the Mark Millar and J.G. Jones comic book of the same name, which was originally published by Top Cow. Now, some 17 odd years later, it's finding new life once again thanks to streaming.

According to FlixPatrol, director Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted" was trending in Netflix's top 10 charts all of last week, hovering between the seventh and ninth spots. It was, admittedly, no competition for Adam Sander's "Happy Gilmore 2," which is confidently in the number 1 spot, but it's still not bad for a movie that is nearly two decades old. The film starred a then-rising actor James McAvoy ("Atonement") in the lead role alongside Angelina Jolie, who was arguably at or near the height of her powers as an A-list star at the time.

"Wanted" specifically centers on Wesley (McAvoy), an unhappy and seemingly ordinary young man who, upon meeting a mysterious woman named Fox (Jolie), is introduced to the Fraternity, a secret society of assassins led by the enigmatic Sloan (Morgan Freeman). In time, Wes learns that his long-lost father was actually killed while working for the Fraternity, and he has been selected to find the person who committed the murder.

Audiences largely remember the movie for its inventive curved-bullet physics, along with its kinetic shootout scenes. It was very much of its time and essentially sold as being "'The Matrix,' but with assassins in the real world." This was also before McAvoy played a younger Charles Xavier in 2011's "X-Men: First Class," which elevated him to another level of stardom. At the time, though, "Wanted" was his most high-profile blockbuster. Clearly, audiences hold something of a soft spot for it. Having a cast that also includes the likes of Jolie and Freeman certainly doesn't hurt the re-watchability factor either.

We tend to sort of expect comic book movies to have a massive cultural impact these days. Even the ones that fail seem to be pervasive in many ways. But 2008 was a very different time. "Iron Man" came out that same year and kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was also long before streaming would become the dominant way to watch stuff at home, back when the box office had a much stronger grip on the media landscape. A film could just be a big hit in its day and sort of fade away after that without having to be an "event."

Such was the case with "Wanted." It made $342 million at the box office against a $75 million budget. Those are numbers that would possibly start a damn cinematic universe today. Yet, we never actually got a sequel, even though "Wanted 2" was at least discussed at various points. That's part of what makes it the perfect candidate to become a hit on Netflix in the here and now.

Time and time again, no matter how much money Netflix spends on original movies, films like "Wanted" frequently end up trending in the streamer's top 10. Even Scarlett Johansson's 2014 sci-fi flick "Lucy" recently found similar success. There are nearly countless other examples, but for all of streaming's attempts to generate buzzy hits, former theatrical one-off successes that didn't appear to have an enduring cultural impact consistently seem to attract viewers en masse years after their original releases.

Is that because people get tired of scrolling and want something familiar? Is it the result of a natural response to seeing a familiar, well-liked star and wanting to put their movie on in the background? Is it because people actually love "Wanted" more than we realize? Ultimately, it's probably a combination of all those things that's led to "Wanted" — and, by extension, other older titles like it — gaining a new lease on life thanks to Netflix.

You can also grab "Wanted" on 4K, Blu-ray, or DVD from Amazon.